In this interview, Jonathan Daniels discusses his father's role as a newspaper editor and Secretary of the Navy, as well as his father's racial and religious views. Daniels also describes how race and the University of North Carolina shaped his own life.

Clay East was a founding member of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. In this interview, he describes life in Tyronza, Arkansas, during the 1920s and 1930s; his conversion to socialism; his observation of the problems of tenant farmers and sharecroppers; and his role in the formation of the union during the early 1930s.

Margaret Edwards grew up in a large, African American sharecropping family in Ayden, North Carolina during the 1950s and 1960s. She eventually settled in the Raleigh area. Following her experiences with the Baptist and Pentecostal Holiness churches, she converted to Mormonism in 1998. In this interview, she discusses her role within the Mormon Church as an African American woman; the intersections between race, gender, and religion; and the attitude of other denominations toward Mormonism.

Calvin and Elizabeth Kytle were both born and raised in the South. After World War II, they spent several years in Atlanta, Georgia, before moving to Ohio. The Kytles held liberal views on race issues and supported civil rights. Here, they describe their perceptions of race problems and their thoughts on the actions of various leaders and politicians, ranging from pro-segregationists to racial moderates to civil rights activists.

Charles Jones led the First Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill as pastor in the late 1940s. He describes his education and ministry in this interview and the controversies during his time at the church. The regional presbytery disapproved of Jones's active support of the Freedom Riders, black attendance in the church, and his failure to read the Article of Faith during services. He describes how he was expelled from the church despite the support of some UNC students and faculty. At the end of the interview, he discusses his views on why "separate but equal" failed and whether people missed an opportunity to change race relations between 1945 and 1950.

Daniel Duke was born in Palmetto, Georgia, in 1915 and became a lawyer during the 1930s. The solicitor general of Fulton County in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Duke presided over a case against the Ku Klux Klan and their use of flogging as a terror tactic against both African Americans and whites. In the mid-1940s, he became the assistant attorney general of Georgia.

Harold Fleming recounts how he became involved with the Southern Regional Council and the kinds of criticisms he faced for opposing racism in the 1940s and 1950s. He especially remembers many Communist trials designed to scare racial progressives and how many limited their involvement in organizations like the S.R.C. for fear of losing their jobs. Fleming compares the leadership styles of those he encountered in the organization and mentions that he was motivated by frustration with the Jim Crow system and its consequences for the South.

Former attorney general and governor of Mississippi James P. Coleman discusses his role in southern politics from the 1930s through the 1960s. Coleman focuses specifically on the issue of racial segregation and its impact on Mississippi politics.

John Ivey received his doctoral degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1944. He and his wife, Melville Corbett Ivey, describe their interaction with such leading figures as Howard Odum, Rupert Vance, and Frank Porter Graham. After a brief sojourn working for the Tennessee Valley Authority, Ivey became the director of the Southern Regional Education Board, where he advocated for the desegregation of public schools in the South.

Lyman Johnson traces his lifelong pursuit of racial equality through his father's rejection of racial hierarchies, his experiences as an educated black Navy solder, his observations of racial violence, and his efforts to get equal pay and union representation for Louisville teachers.

Sid McMath was the governor of Arkansas from 1949 to 1953. A staunch liberal Democrat, McMath advocated for the inclusion of African Americans in the Democratic party and in higher education, challenged the patriarchal control of the power companies over the state, and improved infrastructure. Here, he describes his perception of the Dixiecrat revolt of 1948 and his belief that federal intervention was necessary to end Jim Crow segregation in the South.

African American journalist William Gordon describes growing up in the rural South in the 1920s and 1930s. Following his education at LeMoyne College in Memphis, Tennessee, and his service in the army during World War II, Gordon attended graduate school and became a journalist. He explains his relationship with civil rights advocates such as Ralph McGill and Herman Talmadge, and describes his perspective on changing race relations and the fall of Jim Crow segregation.

Willie Snow Ethridge discusses her career as a writer in the South and her efforts to combine work with family and marriage. In addition, she describes growing up in Georgia, gender expectations in the South, and her work in the anti-lynching movement.

Martha W. Evans was already an active participant in Charlotte, North Carolina, politics when she was elected as a state legislator in 1962. In this interview, she describes local and state politics as they related to the great physical and economic growth Charlotte experienced from the late 1950s into the 1970s.

A pioneer in women's education and women in law, Kathrine Robinson Everett describes what it was like to attend law school in the early twentieth century. In the 1920s, Everett practiced law in Cumberland County and worked to register women to vote after the passage of the 19th Amendment. Following her marriage in 1928, Everett worked alongside her husband, supporting his legal and political career; became involved in local politics in Durham; and worked with various women's organizations.